Will religious people ever wise up to the fact that the book of genesis is mythology?

Answer 1

doesnt appear anytime soon-and the logic that follows that statement will take a long time---just my thoughts-smile and enjoy the day

Answer 2

NO! Because there is too much evidence for there being a true beginning to everything by a creator. Also, matter (non-life) can NOT evolve into life. Also the 2nd law of thermodynamics has matter and energy going to a more chaotic state rather than reaching a higher state. DNA is not only complex, it is in a sophisticated order. It points to a maker and creater of higher intelligence. We can not create life from non-life in the labiratory, and yet naturalists try to say nature somehow randomly was smart enougt to do this. Also, the complexity of the universe mitigates against the idea of it coming about by random chance. All watches are made by a watchmaker. Humans or the universe are far more complex than the very best watch. Cambridge professor Sir Fred Hoyle worked with famous mathematician Chandrs Wickamasinghe to calculate the probabilities of just one cell (not the complex molecule of DNA) coming into existance by random chance. They were gracious and used 15-20 billion years as a span of time because this is thought to be the approximate age of the universe per many scientists. More recent evidence suggests less than 5 billion years old. They estimated it would take 10 to the 40,000th years to possibly occur. This would make it a mathmatical improbability.
Some questions for you to ponder: Can an explosion produce complex order without intelligent design? What was before the Big Bang Theory? Mutations are very rare. When they do occur, there is an exchange of information or misinformation, but never an increase. The system is limited to what is has and therefore cannot create new codes. Where would new DNA information come from to make a higher ordered species, when is yet to exist? Why does the fossil records show fully formed species, with NO, or very questionable transitional forms? This per David M. Raup, past curator of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. One would think there should be abundant transitions throughout history. Can you please prove that creation did not occur according to the book of Genesis? Do you really know this or have faith in your theory? I have many more reasons than this, but this is the tip of the iceberg. Note I quote only one passage of scripture, although many can be given.
Jesus spoke of humans being craeted by a creator in Matthew 19:4-6.
As you can see, religious people are not necessarily just fools believing in mythology. The fact is there IS evidence for intelligent design/creation as described in Genesis.
Perhaps it is not the religious people that need to wise up.

Answer 3

OK, this guy may be Athiest, but he does not say he is.

I do not believe the Bible is all that it's cracked up to be, but I do not, nor have I ever, denied that there may be a God...

Wising up to the possibility that something that was translated by the hand of man from transcripts written by the hand of man is all a matter of choice..

I choose to believe what I will, and resent either side to try to shove their beliefs or lack of same down my throat. It gives me that dry taste that you get when you gargle with cinnamon mouthwash, or drink a very dry martini. I don't like it.

I'm a smart girl. There are a lot of smart men and women on Answers, and then there are some dorks, but all are allowed their opinions, their silly questions, and their reasonable logic.

Now if this asker were to expand on their short sentence questions, it would give others a better idea as to how he came to his conclusion, which would be great.

thank you all.

Answer 4

Will you "wise up" and realize that the word "mythology" is a respectful term? Christian writers speak of "sacred myths", stories whose message and truths lie beyond the literal accounts they describe.

This might shock you, but plenty of Christians and Jews find much truth and inspiration in the book of genesis without taking the creation story (which is a TINY portion of the book) literally. Other Christians would say this attitude is too liberal, and of course the debate rages.

The best explanation I have read for what the first chapter of Genesis is about is as follows: (fundamentalists will adamantly disagree :)

The passage was written during the Babylonian captivity (thus it was the last portion of the book to be written). At the time, Jews were being exposed to the Babylonian creation story.

In that story, the gods sprang out of the belly of a monster which personified the sea. They then turned and conquered this sea monster.

The story reflects the rise of political power of the priestly class in ancient bablyon. Those who were educated enough to predict the flood seasons and to build dykes to protect the people (i.e., who could conquer the sea) rose to prominence and were deemed to have divine status. Hence, the gods conquered the sea monster in the mythology that evolved.

During the Babylonian exile, a Jewish writer sought to counter this story of the dominant culture in which the Jews found themselves a minority. So he wrote a counter-cultural piece that paralleled the Babylonian story, but with important changes.

Thus, in the Genesis account, the author pointedly states that God existed before the sea, that God created the sea, and that God created the "sea monster" (called Leviathan in some translations.) "Maybe you folks believe that your Gods were created by nature," the author is saying, "but we believe in a transcendent God, a God from whom nature sprang forth."

And of course, every Jew reading this at the time would have understood the literary form it represented, and would NOT have taken it as scientific history. That was not the author's intention. Rather it was to rally Jews to remain faithful to their own calling and not to be assimilated by the religion of their captives.

The majority of the book of Genesis deals with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.....the genesis of God's people and of God's relationship with them. The creation story was a later addition, and was seen as an appropriate symbolic prologue: God brought forth the world from chaos just as God called forth a people from amongst the mundane harshness of life in the middle east.

(Again, there are Christians who will vociferously object to what I have wriiten. I respect their point of view. But this point of view makes sense to me.)

I get tired of repeatedly hearing the argument "God didn't create the world in 6 days, so the bible is false." This reflects a very superficial attitude and lack of understanding of how Christians relate to the Bible.

I imagine this post will generate a number of thumbs down from people on both sides of the argument :)

Answer 5

The proper term is folk history and it is just a shame that most people have no idea of the accidental and deliberate mistranslations involved in the evolution of today's versions of The Bible. One of the worst was King James and the folks who made the book read the way he wanted it.

Answer 6

What's wrong with myths? Nothing wrong if they teach truth! Myth is a kind of literary genre that can be employed to teach either truths or falsehoods. It's neutral. It does not mean that a myth is always a lie. It's one way to tell a story. Jesus used parables to teach truth. Are the parables Jesus used true stories? Not necessarily but they teach spiritual truths.

What planet are you on!

Answer 7

I think there are some that reason that a bunch of the crap in the bible is fairy tales with a few good life lessons, but most believe that the word of the bible is like law and everything in it is true. Any proof to the contrary and they clamp their hands over their ears and scream lalalalalala so they don't have to hear it. Their immaturity is annoying.

Answer 8

and you know this, how? what if you're wrong? what a mistake it would be.. an eternal mistake.. You might consider that if you err you might want to err on the side of caution.. think about it. Have you ever been wrong before? eternity!!! a long long time for one stupid mistake.. Take a little time to real the new testament and then decide.

Answer 9

When I was in sixth grade, my friends and I made up a religion with gods, goddesses, and traditions. We even made a book for it. It was called Wassikipoo.

Who's to say it wasn't a group of men that got really bored and created a long term project for fun, the Bible?

Christianity is no different from Wassikipoo.

Answer 10

And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.
~Thomas Jefferson

i fear it will not be in our lifetime. :(

Answer 11

I assume you stand by your science text that tells you your ancestors were bacteria? I wouldn't talk about myths if I were you.

Remember atheist is nothing but a politically correct term for someone God calls a fool. “The fool has said in his heart, there is no God.”